Square Enix, for all 34 years they have been producing games always made their own accompanying video game trailers—that is until Front Mission Evolved. The guys down at Big Machine Design were beyond surprised when they received a request from Square Enix to make a top-secret trailer for E3 2009 in Los Angeles. How long did they have to make a trailer from scratch for one of the biggest developers out there? A mere four weeks. This was no simple task, and I had the pleasure of talking to them one on one about what it took to make this groundbreaking trailer for none other then Square Enix.
**Added storyboards and streaming video**
When I spoke to the guys from Big Machine outside of the Square Enix booth at E3, they told me about how nerve wracking it was to create this trailer. When asked why Square Enix requested this video from an American company, they said simply that Square had their hands full making the Final Fantasy VIX Online trailer. In the meantime, Big Machine needed to create a masterpiece, if they ever wanted to hear from Square Enix ever again
A lot of times game trailers are overlooked, people watch them without realizing the hard work that go into them, especially those built from the floor up. Big Machine was given a few guidelines for the trailer, but from there on out they were on their own. For being a video only 1min 27sec in length, you might think this is simple. Think again. Editing live footage can take up to about an hour per one minute of edited footage. Imagine what sort of work goes into creating one minute of edited footage with just a blank canvas and a few applications like Maya, After-Effects and Final Cut Pro.
The initial design for the trailer intended for the mechs to appear powerful yet light and agile. The final product contrasts the two characteristics by flipping between the factory where we see the massive machines being assembled, to a shaky shot of a mech flying into a city at high speeds. All of the unsteady camera movement was first filmed outside with live footage, then taken into the studio and tracked to create a truly authentic look. Also (you may have noticed) there isn’t any music in this trailer, which is unusual and very interesting. This was of course, intended, as the creators wanted all the sounds to be natural. So the only thing heard throughout the entire video are things like the robots working on the mechs, gunshots, screams and explosions. Similarly, everything you see in the trailer was ‘built’ specifically for the video, the city and the factory are all just wire frames and cell shades.
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The most remarkable part of it all—that they managed to pull it off. With such a small time frame and high amount of pressure, this trailer was a whirlwind. Square Enix was concerned about the outcome, but in the end they loved it and I got to see the trailer in the E3 booth on their massive preview screen. However, probably the best part of the whole thing was seeing the pride on the faces of the producers as they watched their creation play. It’s spectacular to hear of their success and see this small American company’s trailer play side-by-side with legends like Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts trailers. The world is shrinking; one company might design a game in California, then send it to a team in Canada to develop it, while a marketing firm begins advertising over in England. All aspects of game development and distribution can benefit from such a global relationship. With that said: best of luck to Big Machine Design. We hope to see more partnership creations, like Front Mission Evolved, in the future.
